The Red Review | Issue #24 (Sept 2025)
A Socialist Action Journal
Declare a National Housing Emergency “Homes Not Howitzers”
by Yves Engler
Officially Canada considers housing a right. But the government certainly doesn’t act as if it is a principle to follow, leaving over one hundred thousand without a home and many more to worry about their precarious situation.
As part of my bid to lead the NDP, I’m calling on the government to declare a state of emergency over housing. This dramatic move would boost government authority to eliminate an entire class of profiteers from the rental market. As part of addressing the housing crisis, the government should convert Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) properties into housing cooperatives. Existing tenants would have a right of first refusal on co-operative membership for their residence.
REITs have taken up an ever-greater share of the rental market. Thirty years ago, these hedge fund type financial structures didn’t exist. Today REITs control over 200,000 units across the country.
Defiant CUPE Flight Attendants Uphold Right to Strike
by Elizabeth Byce
10,517 Canadian Union of Public Employees flight attendants working for Air Canada won a pitched battle in their struggle for a collective agreement. A tentative agreement was reached after an historic and courageous fight that inspired labour unionists and their allies across the country. CUPE urged their members, early on August 19, to return to work, pending a ratification vote on the tentative deal.
On August 5, over 97 per cent turned out to vote, with a resounding 99.7 per cent supporting a strike mandate. They suffered years of falling real wages as a result of their expired 10-year-old contract and prolonged negotiations. There had not been a strike of “cabin crew” in 40 years. Air Canada failed to negotiate fairly on issues like unpaid work and poverty wages. The entry level flight attendants’ pay has risen only $3.00/hour in over 25 years. Seventy per cent of the workforce is female.
Let It Burn: Ontario’s Wildfires, Bill 5, and the Logic of Capitalist Abandonment
by Sophie Jean
As wildfires tear through Northwestern Ontario, the provincial government is gutting environmental protections, slashing firefighting resources, and pushing Bill 5, which fast-tracks industrial expansion at the expense of Indigenous rights and ecological stability. Far from an isolated disaster, these fires expose a deeper systemic crisis where capitalist priorities of extraction, austerity, and colonial control lay bare the true and growing costs of capitalism.
Northwestern Ontario continues to suffer under a relentless wave of wildfires. Over 200 active fires have scorched Northwestern Ontario this season, with the total area burned exceeding 750,000 hectares. Among the largest blazes, Red Lake 12 alone has consumed nearly 196,000 hectares, while other major fires like Red Lake 62 and Kenora 20 have each burned tens of thousands of hectares. As of August 10, around 46 fires remain active, forcing repeated evacuations in remote communities such as Sandy Lake, Deer Lake, and Kasabonika Lake.
Bread Price Fixing in Canada: A Communist Perspective
by Agnieszka Marszalek
The infamous Loblaw bread price-fixing scandal exposes the contradictions of capitalism and the exploitation inherent in a profit-driven food system. Bread, the most basic staple of working-class life, was transformed into a vehicle for corporate greed. This case demonstrates how monopolistic control in the hands of a few corporations undermines the welfare of the majority and highlights the urgent need for collective ownership and democratic control of essential goods.
From 2001 to 2015, Loblaw Companies Limited, George Weston Limited, and other major grocers colluded to artificially inflate bread prices. These corporations acted in unison to raise prices, further extracting wealth from millions of working-class families. When the scandal was exposed in 2017, Loblaw attempted to pacify public outrage with a token $25 gift card, an act that reflects the capitalist tactic of offering minimal concessions while maintaining power.
Migrant Workers Reject Federal “Cosmetic” Reforms that Maintain Modern Slavery Conditions
by Migrant Rights Network
Migrant organizations unveiled a comprehensive new report involving 514 migrant workers across Canada that reveals federal government proposals to “improve” temporary foreign worker programs will actually worsen conditions for vulnerable workers. The federal proposals come on the anniversary of UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery Professor Tomoya Obokata’s finding that Canada’s temporary migration programs are “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery, as it institutionalizes asymmetries of power that favour employers and prevent workers from exercising their rights” and his call for permanent residency for all migrant workers. The federal government created their reform plan in response to this criticism, but their proposed changes maintain the fundamental power imbalances that enable exploitation.
“This is Not a Drill”
by The Chris Hedges Report
There are very few artists or musicians who have stood as doggedly on the side of the oppressed as Roger Waters, the co-founder, bassist, singer, and songwriter for Pink Floyd. He has been an outspoken defender of Palestinian rights and critic of the apartheid state of Israel long before the genocide. He was one of the principal signers of an open letter called, “Artists Against Apartheid” and supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement denouncing musicians who perform in Israel.
He called out the fabrications disseminated by Israel that Hamas carried out systematic sexual assaults on October 7th. He attacked Labour leader Keir Starmer for his backing of the genocide and headlined a concert for Palestine with Cat Stevens and the rapper Lowkey.
He came to the defense of the British punk rap band, Bob Vylan, who, at this year's Glastonbury Festival, led the chant of “Death, death to the IDF,” referring to the Israeli Defense Force.
Carney Helps Poilievre Attack Women's Rights
by Christo Aivalis
Carney has betrayed many Canadians since the election, running on a centrist platform before veering right in the ensuing months. But near the top of that list might be Canadian women. While Carney certainly won back some male voters lost during Justin Trudeau’s final stretch, he was incredibly successful as convincing women that he was the only one who could stop Poilievre, who Carney said would attack access to abortion, contraception, and gender equality programs
But as the NDP warned, Carney was simply going to copy Poilievre, and their prediction was spot on. The warning signs for this actually came before the election, but socialists and feminists were shouted down by Liberals as Carney’s preliminary cabinet eliminated a dedicated minister seat for women’s rights. “Be quiet!” they said, lest we supposedly help Conservatives win.
Who Is the Failed State? Cuba, Revolutionary Ethics, and the Moral Bankruptcy of Western Capitalism
by Isaac Saney
In an age where propaganda masquerades as truth and empire cloaks itself in the garb of “democracy,” few lies are as pervasive—or politically useful—as the assertion that Cuba is a failed state. This accusation, deployed with relentless regularity by U.S. officials, corporate media, and neoliberal ideologues, is meant to delegitimize a revolutionary and socialist project that has refused to bow before empire.
But what does it mean to be a “failed state”? And more importantly, who gets to define failure?
Let us be clear: Cuba is a besieged state, not a failed one. Under siege from the most powerful imperial force in the world—the United States—it has endured more than six decades of blockade, economic sabotage and subversion. The U.S. blockade is not merely a trade, financial and commercial embargo. It is an economic war designed to produce misery, scarcity, and discontent.
Francesca Albanese’s Report: From the Economy of Occupation to the Economy of Genocide
by Palinfo.com
In recent decades, the structure of Israel’s occupation of Palestine has undergone a profound transformation, shifting from a traditional settler-colonial project to an integrated system of control and exclusion, built on economic profit and international complicity.
In her report presented to the 59th session of the Human Rights Council (16 June – 11 July 2025), the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, offers an unprecedented analysis of the occupation’s structure from both economic and legal perspectives.
The report, titled “From the Economy of Occupation to the Economy of Genocide,” not only documents violations but also deconstructs the globalized capitalist system that transforms occupation into a profitable genocidal enterprise.